The inspiring Lucas Family of Canada held a block party, organized a garage sale, sold awareness ribbons, and pulled off a hugely successful Georgia’s Journey of Hope fundraiser as they soared past their individual goal of raising $5,000 for Unite For The Cure in our quest to collectively raise $100,000 for Dr. Hans Keirstead’s groundbreaking SMA stem cell program at UC Irvine. Congratulations Lucas Family! You guys are awesome!
Georgia Lucas
The Lucas Family’s first annual Georgia’s Journey of Hope event was an enormous success. This remarkable family created a day of fun and fundraising for SMA research on what should have been their darling daughter’s first birthday party. It’s success is no surprise as they worked diligently putting this ambitious event together, creating T-shirts, garnering an enormous list of sponsors, passing out flyers in their community and building an army of volunteers for the big day. We are so moved by their courage and determination. Here is what Kristen has to say about Georgia’s Journey of Hope:
I thought that Georgia was going to be born on the third. 3 has always been my lucky number and I thought that it would be appropriate for my third child to be born on October 3rd. I even had contractions bad enough for several hours that we called the midwife. The contractions eventually eased up and spaced out. Georgia would not make her appearance for 3 more days.
It seems appropriate however that something big was meant to happen on the 3rd day of October. Perhaps my sixth sense was just off by a year. Today a community came together. There was no official head count but you definitely showed me that a bigger venue will be at the top of the list for next year! Many of you seemed surprised by the numbers. I can’t say that I was. I realized a while back that Georgia’s Journey of Hope was going to be bigger than I had originally thought.
When I first booked the hall I marched in telling myself that if I could make $1000.00 that I would be proud of myself. Surely $1000.00 could help make a difference and after all we are still reeling from the loss of Georgia. As preparations got under way the fundraiser seemed to take on an energy all unto itself. Many of you threw yourselves into it as if Georgie had been yours. All of you will never know how much it means to me to know that you continue to love our “Georgie Baby”. She was always everyone’s baby.
This is Kristen. Our balloon maker extrodinare. She sat there for 4 hours doing balloon animals, flowers, hats etc
Here's Mike on the big bouncy slide. The kids loved this thing! Thank goodness that it fit. Thank you Funquest!!
Here's my brother Kevin sitting at the Unite for the Cure Table with the amazing chocolate suckers that Tanya made. They say things like 'unite', 'hope' and 'Georgia'.
Here's Ginette painting Maya's face!
The Lucas Family raised more than $9,500 for FSMA Canada, with over $3,000 going toward Unite For The Cure. Congratulations Lucas Family on the success of Georgia’s Journey of Hope!!!
For more details visit their family blog: Georgia’s Journey.
The Lucas’ are on fire! Not only did they put together a garage sale fundraiser, they added additional ways to raise funds by selling treats and awareness ribbons.
Their “ever so creative and generous friend”, Tanya, came up with the idea to have awareness ribbons made up. They are hot pink and said ‘Unite for Georgia’ on one end and “Cure SMA” on the other. They sold them for $1 at their recent garage sale. They also enlisted the help of Grandma to bake her famous cinnamon buns for the sale and they sold like…well delicious cinnamon buns! Here is what Kristen wrote about their event:
Well. after lots of help from family and friends we joined our community today and had a garage sale. Thank you to all of you yet again that donated items, helped me get organized, showed up ready to buy or just to smile. Thank you especially to my mom who stood at the Unite for the Cure table for 7 hours telling complete strangers why it is so important. Even I don’t have the energy for that!
In the end we raised $895.00 for pediatric palliative care in the city and $405.00 for Unite for the Cure. That’s $1300.00! Not bad for a day’s work. Thanks for the cinnamon buns mom, the chocolates Abby and Natalie and the ribbons Tanya.
Great job Lucas family!!!
What a great idea for a fundraiser and community event: a block party!
The Lucas family of Canada and their neighbors organized a summer block party last weekend complete with music, a bounce house, face painting, sidewalk chalk, and lots of food and drink. They also held a 50/50 draw with 50% of the proceeds going to the Lucas’ Unite For The Cure campaign.
Click here to read more about the Lucas’ block party and see some pictures. It looks like everyone had a great time!
